Iran Press/ America: Mike Pence's chief of staff Nick Ayers who is Trump's first pick to replace John Kelly, already turned the job down (and said he'll leave Pence's side next year), leaving Trump in a more challenging hunt than expected for a replacement, New York Times reported.
As Trump heads into the fight of his political life, the man he had hoped would help guide him through it has now turned him down, and he finds himself in the unaccustomed position of having no obvious second option.
While Trump is having trouble replacing Kelly, Nike Ayers, the main focus of President Trump’s search to replace John F. Kelly as chief of staff in recent weeks, said on Sunday that he was leaving the administration at the end of the year. Mr. Ayers, 36, the chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, is returning to Georgia with his wife and three young children, according to people familiar with his plans.
Mike Pence's chief of staff Nick Ayers
The decision leaves Trump to contend with fresh uncertainty as he enters the 2020 campaign amid growing danger from the Russia investigation and from Democrats who have vowed tougher oversight, and could even pursue impeachment, after they take over the House next month.
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The president on Sunday disputed news reports that he had settled on Mr. Ayers as his pick. “I am in the process of interviewing some really great people for the position of White House Chief of Staff,” he said on Twitter. “Fake News has been saying with certainty it was Nick Ayers, a spectacular person who will always be with our #MAGA agenda. I will be making a decision soon!”
But two people close to Mr. Trump said that a news release announcing Mr. Ayers’s appointment had been drafted, and that the president had wanted to announce it as soon as possible.
"Donald Trump" announced on Saturday that Kelly is leaving White House at the end of the year.
Rep. Mark Meadows, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Mick Mulvaney, White House budget chief, Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Yankees president Randy Levine, Former Trump deputy campaign manager David Bossie and Wayne Berman, Blackstone Group senior advisor are a few candidates that have been thrown around in the last few days as potential Kelly successors. 103/207
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